McCord 2024: Michaëlle Sergile

Michaëlle Sergile:

To All the Unnamed Women

Exploring the relationship between history and archival violence

September 13, 2024 - January 12, 2025

This exhibition is presented by the Montreal's McCord Stewart Museum. It combines archival records and fiction, and traces the origins of the first collective created by Black women in Quebec, the Coloured Women’s Club of Montreal (CWCM). Michaëlle Sergile is drawing on the concept of critical fabulation theorized by an American author Saidiya Hartman, defined as a methodology that combines historical and archival research with a critical theory and fictional narrative (see here).

For her first solo exhibition at the museum, the artist has created 7 original tapestries on Jacquard looms. Three of them reconstruct images selected from the Museum’s Photography collection, and four illustrate portraits of CWCM members. Archival photographs and objects from the Museum collections complete the installation. The artist stated:

 “When I started working with textiles, I realized there was a disconnect between the visual arts and craft, as if the two notions couldn’t coexist. I thought it fitted in very well with the way I conceptualized archives, because I was very interested in anything that’s put aside. I felt that the medium of weaving itself was being sidelined. I liked that the word métissage (“racial mix”) contains tissage (“weaving”), just like text and textile.”

For Michaëlle Sergile, creation is a way of confronting the limitations of archives, of imagining and fully recognizing the lives of individuals of whom we have only a few traces. Weaving was an obvious choice as a medium for expressing the realities of the Black women featured in the exhibition, as many parallels can be drawn between the themes addressed and weaving. Often associated with handicrafts, this medium is still rarely used by artists. As proof, only 3 computer-assisted Jacquard looms – used by Michaëlle to create her works – are available in Montreal.

Michaëlle Sergile stated about her installation:

 “To All the Unnamed Women doesn’t simply commemorate the past, but offers a profound reflection on the creation of memories and the importance of identification. Through archives, I can say what I can’t always say. It’s a great way to create a link with people who once existed but are no longer with us today, to give a sense of continuity to their discourse. I think there’s something beautiful and powerful about thinking of all the people who have had these thoughts before you, and being able to associate them with the period you’re living in.” 

Michaëlle Sergile

Michaëlle Sergile is an independent artist and curator working mainly with archives from the post-colonial period, from 1950 to the present day. Her artistic practice aims to understand and rewrite the history of Black communities, and more specifically that of women, through the medium of weaving. Traditionally associated with craftsmanship and femininity, weaving allows her to explorepower relations linked to gender and ethnicity

She has recently exhibited her work at the Musée national des beaux-arts duQuébec, the Musée d’art deJoliette, the Fonderie Darling and the OFF, Biennale deDakar, Senegal. She also waslong listed for the prestigious Sobey Arts Award in 2022. In 2023, she won the Visual Artist of the Year Award at Gala Dynastie and began a residency at the Fonderie Darling.

Curatorial and production team:

An exhibition created by the McCord Stewart Museum.

Artist: Michaëlle Sergile

Project management: Caroline Truchon

Project Manager, Exhibitions Curating: Mathieu Lapointe

Curator, Archives Graphic design: David Martin

Click on images to enlarge them.

All photos @ Nadia Slejskova

For more information about current exhibitions and special evens associated with this exhibition, visit the McCord Stewart Museum website.

The Little Prince Exposition 2024

THE LITTLE PRINCE AMONG MEN Exposition

Le Petit Prince Parmi Les Homme

May 1 - June 30, 2024

At Place Bonaventure

Everyone knows the book The Little Prince, but do you know the man behind this work?

Discover the fascinating life of the book's author Antoine de Saint Exupéry who was not only a writer, but also an aviator, postal worker, poet and philosopher. The exhibition highlights one of the best-selling works in the world through animated images, as well as by portraying the author's destiny and his fascination with planes. It includes film projections, audiovisual montages and testimonies from the writer, his family and his friends, as well as many other documents.

The life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry fascinates as much as the literary character of the Little Prince he created in his book. Between his birth on June 29, 1900 and his death on July 31, 1944 when he perished in a fatal plane crash, the French writer lived an intense and even a hectic life.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry's life is portrayed and explained to visitors through 32 exhibition stations which the public visits one by one. All the stations are explained by the audio guide given to each visitor at the entry to the exhibition.

It would take approximately one or one and a half hours to visit the exposition. But it might take longer if one intends to closely read and examine various documents in many displays protected under the glass.

Visit Montreal, Place Bonaventure, for an experience that is both quite interesting and enriching.

FREE for children aged 4 and under.

More information here.

Click on images to enlarge them.

All Photos @ Nadia Slejskova

This article's dedicated internet address, or also click on the title above the very first photo in this article.

 

Divina Dali

 

DIVINA DALI

AT GRAND QUAY

OF THE PORT OF MONTREAL

July 16 - October 31, 2021 

  

This exhibition is a journey into Dante Alighieri’s the beyond world, passing through Dali’s surrealism. Thes exhibition presents more than100 works that celebrate the Spanish artist Salvador Dali as well as the Italian writer Dante. It also features Dali’s monumental work he created n 1945 that had never before been exhibited. Additionally, there are several large scale photos.

Dali’s  works on display are his original watercolour illustrations of the Dante Alighieri’s narrative poem The Divine Comedy written between 1308 and 1320. Allegorically, the poem represents a state of the soul after death, including the divine justice, punishment or reward. According to the Western church's postulates established at about those times, both Dante’s poem and the exhibition are divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradiso. The Divine Comedy is considered to be the pivotal work in Italian literature. It helped to establish the Tuscan language in which it was written as the standardized  Italian language.

When planning Dante’s 700th birthday celebrations in the early 1950s, the Italian government commissioned Salvador Dali to create 100 illustrations for a commemorative edition of the Divine Comedy. They considered Dalí’s hyper-realistic, bizarre, and nightmarish imagery the perfect pairing to Dante’s visions of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. However, the public outcry against the commissioning of a Spanish artist to accompany the work of an Italian cultural hero forced the Italian government to revoke its support for the project. Undaunted, Dalí worked with a French publisher to have 100 wood engravings (one for each of The Divine Comedy’s verses) made after his watercolours which were completed and published in 1963. Those same original watercolours are presently exhibited in Montreal.

Divina Dalí offers visitors a unique opportunity to travel through three imaginary worlds: Hell, the Purgatory and Heaven. It represent a return, an encounter, seven centuries apart, between the literary work of Dante and the pictorial talent of Salvador Dalí.

The exhibition was based on an original idea from LaGirafe en feu. It was conceived in a spirit of innovation and even driven by some current issues. It twill allow visitors to experience a more intimate and often overlooked dimension of Salvador Dalí's creation by becoming familiar with Dante's major work Divina Commedia, one of the prominent humanist treatises in literature.

This is the exhibition's premiere. It has never been presented anywhere else in the world. It was curated by Raynald Michaud.

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ABOUT

LaGirafe en feu plans, designs, scripts and produces exhibitions dedicated to the work of Salvador Dalí. Embodying Dalí's very spirit of surprising and creating events, it initiates unusual collaborations with current artists; drawing on Quebec know-how and genius, without ever losing the essence of the works of the Catalan master.  Divina Dalí is an original idea from La Girafe en feu.

Raynald Michaud - the Commissioner Artistic director, author, director and designer of exhibitions, shows and events in public and private cultural enterprises. Developer of innovative animation concepts and collaborator of numerous cultural bodies including the Pointe-à-Callières Museum, Space for Life and the Just for Laughs Museum. Recipient of many prestigious awards.

Visit the DIVINA DALI website.

To buy tickets.

Salon du livre 2018

Le Salon du livre de Montréal

Montreal Annual Book Show

41st Edition

November 14-19, 2018

Comme des géants 
Maison d'édition jeunesse

This Montreal's annual book faire, always held at Place Bonaventure, is extremely popular with Montrealers, especially with children. Loads of school buses bring children to the show, they crowed various kiosks, look through the books, and ask writers present at the show to sign the books they have just purchased.



I was gifted with a book by Nadine Robert, the editor of the publishing house Comme des géants, and I would like to bring it to your attention. The book Elsi was actually written by the editor herself, and it was skilfully illustrated by Maja Kastelich. Those are just the types of illustrations I remember in my own books when I was a child. It brought back the memories of my childhood and the delight I had to read and leaf through such books and to look at the attractive illustrations which made the book story come alive, bringing me right into the imaginary world created by the author.

The Christmas is fast approaching, so do not hesitate to visit this book show, and to purchase just the right book presents either for your child or any other children you might know and would like to bring some happiness to during the winter holidays.

The show presents a huge amount of books of any kind covering an immense array of subjects. One can find books not only for one's own reading pleasure but also for the friends and family.



Click on images to enlarge them.

You can read more about the show in my other article here.

Visit the Salon du livre  website.
Visit Comme des géants website.

Prix Québec / Wallonie-Bruxelles 2015

PRIX QUÉBEC/WALLONIE-BRUXELLES 2015
For Children's Literature

Le Salon du livre de Montréal 2015 was marked yesterday by the Awards Ceremony for the prestigeous  PRIX QUÉBEC/WALLONIE-BRUXELLES for Children's Literature. The prize is given every two years concurrently to authors or illustrators from Quebec and also to those belonging to the French Community in Belgium. This award comes with a cash prize of $ 3,500 for the winners and an additional financial assistance of $ 6,000 to their publishing houses so that they can ensure the books' promotion and marketing in their respective region. This year, the award specifically targeted the category "First novel for beginning readers".

Mélanie Rutten and Alain M. Bergeron

The winners for PRIX QUÉBEC/WALLONIE-BRUXELLES 2015 were:

For Wallonie-Bruxelles, author and illustrator Mélanie Rutten for her book L'ombre de chacun (éditions MeMo).

For Québec, author Alain M. Bergeron and illustarator Pierre-Yves Cezard for the book Le géant qui sentait les petits pieds (éditions Québec Amérique).

Pierre-Yves Cezard

For more information, visit the Salon's website.

MMFA 2014: Warhol Mania

Warhol Mania: A Brand-new Look at His Advertising Posters and Magazine Illustrations

November 5, 2014 – March 15, 2015

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting this new exhibition featuring Andy Warhol's fifty posters and an impressive selection of magazine illustrations created by the artist throughout his career. The items on display come from a private collection of Montreal collector and art historian Paul Maréchal. He started collecting Warhol's illustartion works and posters in 1996. Six years later in 2002, he acquired the last item and had to stop because Warhol's works became too prohibitively expansive. 

The exhibition also coincides with the publication of two catalogues written by Paul Maréchal about Warhol works. Both catalogues are available at the museum's bookstore. 

As a leader of the American Pop Art movement, Andy Warhol saw his works, together with his image, given wide media coverage. Amongst his final few disigns is the poster below, where he uses his own image. There were only 300 copies printed of this poster, most of which no longer exist.

It is important to note that Warhol illustrated more than 400 magazine issues, including more than fifty covers. Although they represent an important part of his career, few of the original drawings have survived. Indeed, more than 90 per cent of the illustrations were never returned to the artist. They were simply destroyed, the usual practice in a magazine’s graphic arts department. The magazine was considered to be the original; the drawing was just one stage in its creation.

Items on display represent only about 25% of Paul Maréchal's private collection. Yet a visitor will see some remarkable works.

A Pop Art icon, Warhol was an illustrator, painter, printmaker, avant-garde filmmaker and music producer. He was born in 1928 in Pittsburgh and died in New York in 1987. He completed a bachelor’s degree in commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, and then worked in New York as a commercial artist for Glamour magazine, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. He received the Art Directors Club medal for his newspaper advertisements in 1952 and was honoured with other awards during the course of the decade.

Click on any image to enlarge it.

For more information, visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts's website:

http://www.mbam.qc.ca/en